


Evil's In My Pocket And Your Will Is In My Hand

by OutlandishWhalesharks



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Divergence - Episode: s03e10 Maveth, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-15 07:57:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11801772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OutlandishWhalesharks/pseuds/OutlandishWhalesharks
Summary: Ward kidnaps Simmons in order to bring It back to Earth, he's not expecting her to bring up painful memories.





	Evil's In My Pocket And Your Will Is In My Hand

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Monday all!
> 
> The title is from Love Is All by The Tallest Man On Earth.

Evil’s In My Pocket and Your Will Is In My Hand

The stomp of footsteps are the first thing she hears as she comes to. Her head is pounding and her wrists sting as the plastic of a zip tie digs in to her skin. The smell of earth invades her senses.

Blinking her eyes open Jemma starts to take in her surroundings. She is tied to a chair in a small room in a temporary outdoor structure. Plastic sheeting and canvas serve as the walls and ceiling, the ground is grass and dirt. There is a slight chill to the air, quantified by her company.

Grant Ward is the one stalking towards her, a glint in his eye accompanied with an evil smile. Giyera stands behind him, arms crossed and face stoic.

“Aww sleeping beauty finally wakes.” Ward’s voice is laced with cold sarcasm.

Keep him occupied. She replays Couslson’s orders in her head. HYDRA’s been looking for a way to bring that monster to Earth, what better bait then the one person who actually made it back form that hell of another planet. The plan is for the team to use the tracker (imbedded in her necklace) to find her, save Will and destroy the portal. It seems impossible but one must hold on tightly to hope.

Jemma only needs to distract Ward long enough so that the team has a chance to sneak up on them and catch him off guard. She knows exactly how to do it too. She just doesn’t want to do that to Will, she’s not even sure if she can betray his trust like that.

“Your going to help us.” Ward states bringing her back to the matter at hand.

“No, I don’t think so.” Her voice remains steady and fierce in reply.

“Oh but I think you will, you see we know you and Fitz have been trying to get back, to save that astronaut of yours.” He says with a wolfish smile, though his eyes seem to question her.

He pauses to study the way she straightens and her glower intensifies at the mention of Will.

“So you know who he is then?” She tries to keep her voice nonchalant, or at least as much as she can under the current circumstances.

His eyes flash with the briefest note of recognition then just as quickly he gives a smug smile. “Will Daniels, recruited by NASA almost 15 years ago to explore a new form of inter-planetary transportation. Of course he didn’t know he was just HYDRA’s pawn."

She bites her lip to keep herself from showing her emotion. “You did your homework, am I supposed to be impressed?” She retorts dryly.

He laughs “Impressed? No. I was thinking more along the lines of desperate. I know I would be if Kara was still alive and separated from me.”

“Well fortunately I am not you.” She says pointedly.

“Hmm maybe I overestimated your love for him, if your willing to let him rot on that planet alone.”

“Don’t. Don’t you dare. I plan on doing everything I can for him, short of letting It cross over to infect the Earth. Because that’s what it will do Ward. It only causes destruction and death.”

He nods as if he’s expecting this argument. “So your willing to sacrifice him then? You think he’d be ok with that, when your being offered an opportunity to save him yourself? You don’t think he would do anything for you if the tables were turned? Including letting the world burn in order to save you. I would, for Kara, if I could.” The look on his face is a mixture of heartbreak and hatred.

“No, Will is a good man in spite of everything you…” She quickly cuts herself off not quite ready to go there. Ward’s eyes flicker again with that same hint of recognition before his face quickly flashes to disbelief then back to its resting blankness.

“It really doesn’t matter Simmons you may not want to cooperate now but you will. You see HYDRA can be a lot more…persuasive than SHIELD was ever willing to be.” The cruelness of his voice practically oozes from every word.

“What, your going to torture me then?” She does her best to keep her breath steady.

At the mention of torture, Giyera paints his face with a malicious grin. Up until this point Jemma had all but forgotten he was in the room with them.

“I thought you would know by now I could never hurt you. Fortunately Giyera here doesn’t have the same weakness.” He smiles and turns to leave, slowly walking towards the door.

That does it, every ounce of guilt and fear of betrayal quickly morph into a burning hot hate for the man walking away from her. He is an utter coward, wanting to cause pain but not willing to swing the sword himself.

A humorless laugh escapes her before her voice ices over and she says “Of course. You can’t be held responsible for the actions of another. Right?”

He stops abruptly just like she knew he would.

“That’s what Christian said to Thomas after the well incident. Isn’t it?”

Ward turns to Giyera “Out now.” The other man follows his order and soon its just the two of them. The fury and pain of past memories are plain as day across his face. She should be fearful but her rage has not yet subsided and she decides to continue before it does.

“You know the most painful thing for Thomas?”

“You don’t know what your talking about.” he says through gritted teeth.

Jemma raises her brow in challenge, he has know idea just how much she knows. “It wasn’t the searing pain in his lungs and limbs, or bruising of his fingertips as he struggled to grab hold of the unforgiving stone walls, hell it wasn’t even fear of his own death. No it was the fact that you let Christian’s words turn you in to the monster and enemy he kept making you out to….”

She’s forced to stop by the sudden blow of Ward’s palm against her cheek, leaving the distinct metallic taste of blood in her mouth. The hit causes one side of her chair to leave the ground and crash back down. A small, strangled shriek escapes her before she can compose herself.

“Coulson dug up my old skeletons, that doesn’t give you the right to speak of them like you know Thomas’ pain.”

She smiles as she spits the blood out on to ground beside her. “I think we both know that SHIELD didn’t give me that intel. You did your research Ward, the man I was stuck with, Will Daniels? That didn’t strike you as odd that his name is composed of Thomas’ middle name and your mother’s maiden name?”

His face goes slack for a moment as if he was the one who was slapped. He quickly replaces the shock with a heated anger. “It’s a coincidence.”

“It’s not, and you know it. You know, when I first met him I was so shocked to see another human being that I didn’t really notice the many similarities between the two of you.” She pauses thinking of Will’s dark hair and eyes, his strong chin and the way he carried himself, so much akin to Ward and yet so different. “It wasn’t until one night I woke up screaming, that we realized our nightmares shared the same monster."

They were still sleeping in different parts of the cave at that point. Will had bent down next her, gently speaking her name and rubbing her back to wake her, saving her from the endless fall Ward had pushed her into. She remembers the mix of terror and sadness on his face when she mentioned the other man’s, his brother’s, name. They stayed up for hours after that discussing every terrible he did.

“Stop it. I don’t believe you.” he says half-heartedly, pulling her out of her reverie.

“I imagine you tried to find him throughout the years, and your trail never went past 2001 did it?”

Grant only glares in response.

“I will take that as a yes. He became a pilot for the Air Force. He wanted to prove that he could be a hero and not let you…your family poison him. He inherited your recklessness though, he couldn’t refuse NASA’s offer to do the impossible and visit another planet.” Her voice echoes with a sad longing, she misses Will so much.

Ward is shaking his head in a pathetic act of denial.

He must of hit her harder than she thought, as she begins to feel sympathy for the sociopathic monster that has terrorized her, and the man she loves, for years. Softly she adds “For so long he thought of you as his only ally, it devastated him to lose that, but after all those years alone he finally forgave you.”

His head rises, eyes glassy, his face twisted in pain and guilt. “Y-y-y-our lying.” This time there is no conviction in his statement, only resignation.

“No, she’s not…brother.”

Jemma becomes overwhelmed by hope and relief as she hears Will’s words. The team was able to save him! She’s so happy that she doesn’t recognize the oddness in his voice.

That bliss shatters as she takes in the blankness in his eyes (eyes that used to convey so much to her). Not to mention the way he holds himself, it’s…it’s not human. The world stops turning, the edges of her vision blurs and her head begins to pound again as a terrible sound punctures the silence that has fallen over them.

The noise stops as she takes a breath and she realizes the sound was that of her own screams and cries. Jemma sits there gasping for breath trying to control her sobs like a young child throwing a temper tantrum.

It feels as though she is under an ocean being tossed by waves or lost to the dark vastness of space. Her grief has made time feel drawn out so that everything is in slow motion. Ward is speaking to Will, no not Will, It, but everything is so slow that she can’t make out the words.

The movement of Ward walking towards her brings time crashing back to normal speed and she is certain of only one thing… she needs to get away. Ward. He is her only chance of getting out this.

It would be justice, for all of his crimes, to let that thing kill him. But she can’t let that happen. She needs him now, besides Ward is the only other person left alive to truly mourn Will, she can’t lose that too.

“Grant” She hisses in a low whisper “That-That’s not Will, you can’t trust It.” He’s not looking at her, so she uses a hand to grab his chin and make him face her.

He looks her in the eye and in a low, gravelly tone he growls “I know.”

It’s not until this moment she realizes that he cut the zip tie at her wrists and is now working on the restraints at her ankles. “Simmons…Run” He then reaches into one of the pockets in his pants grabbing a gun maybe? She’s not sure what happens next as she is already out of her chair and half way to the door. She needs to be as far away from Will’s body as soon as possible. Tears try to break lose but she won’t let them, escape has to be her only priority.

As she makes it through the doors she can hear gunshots, though they her mind is so foggy with fear and sorrow that it sounds so much further away. The sound of her shoes hitting the ground is the only thing she allows herself to focus on. Then she is nearly knocked off her feet by a sudden hot force of pressure from the room she just left. A few seconds later the loud booming of the explosion catches up to her. Its deafening for several moments until she can hear the smacks of feet hitting the floor again.

She keeps running only stopping when she hears Ward yell her name as he runs towards her.

Watching him run, she is reminded of how much he is like Will. Less than 30 minutes ago the similarities were disconcerting and almost frightening, now they are the only comforts she can find. She stares him straight in the eyes to ensure that thing didn’t get him too. His intense stare is completely Grant Ward, there is no denying it. She should be surprised or disgusted with herself, that she is relieved to see him alive, but she doesn’t feel anything past her relief and that deep emptyness.

He grabs her in order to lead, she’s not sure were he’s taking her, knows she shouldn’t trust him, yet she follows anyway. She can’t quite seem to find the will to care.

Will is dead. She has spent her last few weeks torturing her self with worse case scenarios (oh but the truth is so much worse!) It is wearing Will’s body like a bloody fashion statement. At least before, she didn’t know, she could still hang on to the hope that she would be able to get to him. Now she knows she will never see him again, not the real Will. At that she finally breaks down, the tears make it so she can’t see, Ward pulling her is the only reason she keeps moving forward.

He pulls her down a hall into a small room, and pulls her into him. Jemma’s head lands against his chest so that she can hear his heart thumping. The sobs force themselves out with even more vigor. Strong warm hands make soothing motions up and down her back. He doesn’t say anything and she is not sure if the jagged movements of his chest is from the reverberations of her own sobs or something else.

She should be running, fighting him, anything, but she cant. She's hated him for so long and for so many valid reasons, yet none of that matters now. She is utterly broken and the only thing keeping her remotely grounded is the steady rhythm of Grant Ward's heartbeat.

**Author's Note:**

> So I was listening to the 4,722 Houra episode of the AOS AfterBuzz podcast adn heard the theory that Will was Thomas. Of course this made my mind go "ooooooh!" and then I just ran with it!
> 
> Anyway I hope you enjoyed! Comments are great or you can contact me at !(:


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